Postcards From Last Summer

by Roz Bailey

  “You’ve been out of the country way too long.” Elle had never been a fan of television. One summer we’d had to force her to watch reruns of St. Elsewhere to bring her up to speed on “life as we know it,” Darcy had insisted. “But don’t sweat it. Nothing a few days in front of the TV with a few Blockbuster moments won’t fix.” With the menu to my face, I filled Elle in on who was dining around us. I was whispering about the anchorwoman/supermom when Darcy and Tara appeared at the patio entrance, Darcy chatting up the maître d’.

  A small handbag dangled from her arm, catching the sunshine. Shaped like a duck and covered in sequins and bangles, it was a beacon, leading all eyes to Darcy. Dressed in a spaghetti strap sundress in a beachy turquoise and white print that gave her aquamarine eyes a chimerical quality, her hair swept back from her eyes in golden ringlets trickling down her back, Darcy brought to a halt a few conversations in the room. Certainly the polo players were on point.

  I felt their eyes follow Darcy to our table, felt their curiosity over the change in her expression from salacious to furious. The maître d’ leaned closer, as if trying to apologize, but she shoved him aside and strode over to the table, right up to me.

  “Et tu, Brute?” Darcy asked, twisting her spine into a delicate, S-shaped pout.

  So Darcy—ever the drama queen. I tapped the empty chair beside me. “Have a seat, before those producers over there flip you an Oscar.”

  “I really shouldn’t,” Darcy said with a steamy hiss, but she did.

  Since the table was square, that put Darcy directly across from Elle, who tinkled her fingers in a wave and smiled. Elle had moussed and spiked her red curls that morning, and I bit back a smile, thinking she resembled a fairy who’d gotten a wing caught in an electric socket. “Me again. Your worst nightmare.”

  “So not funny.” Darcy snapped her head to Tara, then to me. “And I resent the setup. You know I wouldn’t have come if I knew . . . she would be here.”

  “Of course. Hence the subterfuge.” Tara flipped open her napkin and pressed it onto her lap, cool and unruffled. Today her auburn hair was curled under at her shoulders in a simple A-line—exotic and mystical—and I was struck by her versatility, with a range of looks from surfer girl to Cleopatra.

  “Well, now that you’re here,” Elle began, “let me say how sorry I am for . . .”

  Canoodling your boyfriend? I bit my lip, wondering how Elle would bail.

  “. . . everything. I mean, this last thing was just wrong, I know. I guess I was still harboring some ill feelings from years ago. My bad.” She shrugged, as if years of resentment and anger could roll right off her narrow shoulders like springs over the rocks of a waterfall.

  This is going better than expected, I thought.

  Darcy held up one hand, a wall of cotton candy pink nails blocking off Elle. “Apology not accepted.”

  “Okay, then,” I sighed. “I knew it couldn’t be that easy. Guess we need to transfer from the express train to the local.”

  “But the last thing we want is to dredge up negative issues from the past,” Tara said. “Lindsay and I are here because we love you guys and want this feud to end. We’ve been friends too long—all those years, digging for sand crabs and pouring cold water down each other’s backs. You can’t tell me you’re going to let that all go over a guy.”

  “He wasn’t just a guy to me,” Darcy snapped, “and you all know that.”

  “We do,” Tara said, “but we also realize that Kevin has a drinking problem, Darce. He’s headed down a scary road, and I’m not sure you want to go there.”

  Darcy shook her head. “That’s got nothing to do with this.”

  “He’s got to be responsible for his behavior,” I said. “Okay, Elle was wrong to go for it, but if she didn’t come along, another girl would have been right behind her.”

  Elle snagged a carrot from a plate of crudités on the table. “What they’re saying is, be pissed at me, but don’t blame me for the breakup with your boyfriend.” She bit into the carrot with a cracking sound.

  “Exactly,” I said. “That’s called transference.”

  “Let’s leave the technical terms to the experts,” Darcy said. Her piercing blue eyes shot through Elle, then she turned her head. “I’ve managed to avoid you the past few weeks, and I’m very comfortable with that situation.”

  “But we’re not,” Tara said. “We’re all friends, and Lindsay and I aren’t comfortable splitting our time between two factions, navigating a civil war. Let’s get to the bottom of this and move on.”

  Darcy folded her arms. “Good luck with that.”

  “I don’t think we need to dig too much,” I said. “It doesn’t take a shrink to figure out that you two compete because you’re so much alike. Fucked-up families, the only-child thing, feelings of abandonment—”

  “That’s pop psychology bullshit, and I hate it when you try to psychoanalyze me. Like it’s all so easy. Like I’m as transparent as a Twinkie wrapper!” Darcy threw down her napkin and grabbed her adorable duck-shaped handbag from the table. “Forget about the psych major, Lindsay; you’re wasting your time.”

  Stung, I dug my fingers into the straw seat of my chair. Damn, I was only trying to help. I tried to recover and respond, but Darcy was already gone from the table, a graceful exit that attracted its share of attention, especially from the polo players, who were in the midst of good-byes. One of them cut off his conversation and made a beeline after Darcy, following her like a circus clown.

  “Where’s she going—the ladies’ room?” Tara asked.

  I bit my lip. “That looks like more than a potty break. I’d say she’s outta here.”

  “But I drove,” Tara said. “How’s she getting home?”

  The Salt Pond Inn was half a mile off the highway, at the end of a gravel road that wound through dunes. Not a lot of buses or cabs coming this way.

  Elle tore off a piece of foccaccia. “Well, I’d say that went well. She went from hating me to hating all three of us.”

  “You’d better go after her,” Tara said.

  But I was already on my feet, weaving through tables, past the concerned waiter to the patio exit. The polo players stood in a half circle, saying last good-byes, but otherwise the parking lot was empty. I cut around a tall, squat Land Rover and scanned the road as it turned past a cluster of scrubby pines. There was Darcy, her heels wobbling over the gravel, her head level and shoulders back like a runway model.

  It was going to be a long walk back to Southampton.

  Let her go. She doesn’t appreciate your peacemaking mission. Don’t follow her like a lost pup.

  “Looks like your friend forgot her walking togs, eh?” said one of the polo players, a graying man with laughing eyes.

  I nodded as he climbed into the Land Rover. Darcy would be fine. She’d find a ride. Probably from some billionaire who’d let her keep the car. It was just Darcy’s karma to be rich and unhappy.

  Everyone has a different cross to bear, Ma always said. And Mary Grace McCorkle was usually on the nose about human nature.

  I had been around Darcy long enough to have more than an inkling of the torment that tugged at her soul. Issues of abandonment.

  Which was why I had expected Darcy to come around and forgive Elle. “Do you know her parents ditched her in Connecticut?” I had told Darcy a few days before the lunch. “It’s not like she just got bored and hopped on the Concorde to New York. The DuBoises made her leave London because they just couldn’t squeeze her into their lives anymore.”

  Darcy had reacted with silence.

  That was when I knew I’d hooked Darcy, caught her on a barb of compassion.

  I knew that Darcy fought with her own demons on the issue of abandoment, always getting sucked in when her parents would appear to want time with her . . . a country club luncheon with her mother or a company Christmas party with her dad. Darcy complained about her parents and appeared to have dismissed any emotional connection with them, but I had see
n her drop plans at a moment’s notice to be with them. Only to realize later that her presence was all for show—the trophy daughter, the innocent, youthful beauty who would lend an air of “family” legitimacy. When we were little kids I had envied Darcy, watching longingly as her parents bought her anything she wanted: designer jeans and outrageously priced swimsuits, pagers and cell phones, expensive jewelry from the elegant shops on Main Street. But over the years, as Darcy bargained to spend nearly every night at my house because she couldn’t stand the roaring quiet of her distant parents, I began to understand. Darcy’s parents were long gone, and though they’d left the checkbook behind, it wasn’t enough to keep a girl going. Darcy needed love, just like the rest of the human race.

  The other day when I explained the crux of Elle’s recent dilemma, that Elle had been sent back to the States because there wasn’t room for Elle and her father’s girlfriend in the London flat—or even, apparently, in the entire city of London, since the DuBoises could have rented a second flat—something clicked in Darcy. Her anger for Elle lost its edge, her complaints fading out like a movie soundtrack. And though Darcy had retorted with an obnoxious, “Why are you telling me this? You know I don’t care,” I knew it was a big lie. I also knew when to press my point and when to shut up and let a message resonate.

  Here in the sunlight, I felt the top of my head baking in the sun. Shielding my eyes, I watched as Darcy disappeared in a dip in the road.

  Let her go . . . let her walk home. Maybe it would teach her to appreciate her friends.

  I turned to go back out to the patio, but my mother’s voice niggled at my mind.

  You know you can always rely on your friends . . .

  Goddamn that voice.

  By the time I reached Darcy, her newly pedicured feet were gritty with sand. “You know,” I called, negotiating a pile of loose gravel, “I don’t usually like to work out right before I eat.” I wiped my sweaty palms on my culotte shorts, a flattering, loose cut in navy with khaki leaves.

  Darcy let out a snort, then turned back. “Why do you always have to be the fucking United Nations?”

  “You guys always do that to me. What else can I do when I’m friends with China and the Soviet Union?” I took a breath and pulled the khaki linen blouse away from my waist. “Look at me. My hair is melting and my pits are soaked.”

  Fists on her hips, Darcy cocked her head to the side. “Yeah, and you’re one of the best goddamned sights I’ve ever seen.”

  Her gush of sincerity took me by surprise. This was the girl who’d just told me to give up dreams of being a psych expert? “So . . . are you coming back? I’d hate to have to fall to my knees and beg. This gravel looks sharp.”

  “Honestly? I don’t know if I can forgive her. Or him. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Take it one step at a time,” I said. “Start by having lunch with her. Work your way up to going steady.”

  There was a new edge to Darcy, the wariness of frightened prey ready to bolt.

  “Hey, it’s been a summer of mistakes, for all of us,” I added. “And you’ve been there, too. You know the power of forgiveness, Darce. Can’t you try?”

  “Okay, I’ll do it.” She threw her hands up in surrender and started marching back toward the restaurant. “But only for you.”

  I fell into step beside her, wanting to complain about the heat and the sandy road and the fact that I always had to play the mediator. But I sensed that it wouldn’t take much to make Darcy flee again, so I gritted my teeth and plodded on.

  By the time we returned to the table on the shady patio, Darcy had regained her old composure, cool as a summer breeze. She sat down beside Elle, propped her sequined purse on the table, and leaned into Elle’s personal space. “I’ll be civil. But you can’t make me like you.”

  Elle worked hard to contain a grin, unsuccessfully.

  “Wipe that smug look off your face.”

  “This isn’t me being smug.” Elle pointed a finger at her face. “This is me being highly amused by your vain attempts to resist my delicious personality. I’ve won over tougher cases than you, Darce. It may take some time, but you’ll come around.”

  Darcy squeezed her eyes shut. “Okay, right now your delicious personality is grating on my nerves. Can we just have lunch and talk about something else?”

  “Sure.” Elle handed out menus. “I’ll even buy.”

  Heads tipped down as we studied the salad and sandwich selections with a collective feeling of relief.

  Darcy put her menu down. “And just one more thing. Just to get this on the record so we’re square, if I ever catch you with my boyfriend again, I’ll have to kill you.”

  I felt my brows rise, wondering how Elle would take it.

  But she just nodded. “Sounds fair to me. Now who wants to split an order of calamari?”

  29

  Darcy

  “This is Dr. Samuel Mehta calling from East End Hospital. Is this Darcy Love?”

  The voice seemed so out of context in the small Bridgehampton bar where Darcy had gone with her friends to shoot some pool that she wondered for a minute if it was some kind of lame joke.

  “This is Darcy. Who’s this again?”

  The doctor repeated his name, adding that Kevin had been brought in unconscious, an apparent overdose of drugs and alcohol. “He’s conscious now. We’re not sure of long-term prognosis, but I’d say he’s very lucky to be alive.”

  Darcy shrank back against the rack of billiard sticks, not sure what to do. When her friends turned from the pool table and asked her what was wrong, she whispered, “Kevin’s OD’d.”

  Elle’s head shot up and Lindsay froze midshot.

  “Is he okay?” Tara asked.

  Darcy waved them off. “I . . . I don’t know what to say. I’m not really next of kin or anything.”

  “Yours was the only name he’d give us. Let’s put it this way, if you don’t give him a ride home, we’re going to have to put him in a cab from Riverhead to . . . wherever it is you live. Southampton? No one’s going to be happy with that cab fare.”

  “I’ll come,” she said before she could talk herself out of it. And suddenly she was neatly replacing her pool stick and retrieving her ornamented duck purse from the midst of beer bottles and spinning slightly in search of the door.

  “You’re going to the hospital?” Tara spelled it out. “Is it serious?”

  “He’s conscious now, but he told them I was his next of kin.”

  “You can’t go alone.” Lindsay slid her stick onto the table. “We’ll drive you.”

  Darcy shrugged. It didn’t matter how she got there, as long as she did.

  “I’d come along,” Elle offered, “but I guess we’d all think that’s a bad idea.”

  It took Darcy a minute to unravel Elle’s dark humor, but she found herself letting out a macabre laugh on the way to the parking lot. Sometimes Elle’s twisted humor was a relief.

  Dr. Mehta’s words floated through her mind as Lindsay floored it down the expressway toward the Riverhead hospital. Emergency room. Overdose. Next of kin.

  “Was he trying to kill himself?” she asked aloud, “or just pushing the party too far?”

  “That’s a good question.” Lindsay fiddled with the dash, lowering the air-conditioning. “Something you’ll have to ask Kevin.”

  At the hospital, the clerk at the desk paged Dr. Mehta, a short, dark-skinned man with braces and the wide, dark eyes of a five-year-old. “Darcy Love? Come with me.”

  Lindsay peeled off to sit in the waiting room while Darcy followed Dr. Mehta back, past beds blocked off only by thin white curtains. “I’ve been hoping your friend will talk to us now that you’re here. He’s been rather stingy on the details.”

  Kevin was propped up in the bed, his lips chapped, the collar of his hospital gown stained black from having his stomach pumped, Darcy assumed.

  “Tell us, Kevin,” Dr. Mehta began, “what did you take?”

  Kevin turned away.
“Just some stuff. I think I drank too much.”

  “Oh, cut the crap, Kevin.” Darcy stepped up to the bed. “Stop being a mary and tell the doctor what you took.”

  Kevin rubbed his eyes with the butt of his hands. “I snorted some coke. I was drinking. One of my friends had some Vicodin. I was supposed to take one, I guess. But I didn’t.”

  “Vicodin is a powerful pain reliever,” Dr. Mehta said. “Too much of it can kill you, but I suppose you already knew that.”

  Kevin shrugged one shoulder, turning to Darcy. The corner of his mouth drooped slightly, as if he was biting his lip to keep from crying. “Thanks for coming. Can you get me out of here now?”

  “First, I want to know . . .” She swallowed against the thickness in her throat. It hurt to see him this way, so fragile, his eyes burning with empty light. “Kevin, did you try to kill yourself?”

  His eyes flickered down, his face crumpling with pain. He was crying.

  Dr. Mehta’s head dropped down to his chart. “You know, over time you can kill yourself with alcohol alone. The Vicodin, it just speeds things along, if that’s your goal.”

  “How could you do that to yourself?” Darcy demanded.

  “I just . . . just didn’t want to feel the pain anymore.” Kevin lifted one arm, pushing his face into the crook of his elbow. “I missed you, Darce.”

  “This isn’t about me,” she said. “Not entirely. You’ve been on a pain-kill mission since junior high, Kev.”

  “Yeah, babe. Haven’t we all?”

  “Not like you, with your friends partying all night on the beach, the endless rounds of drinks on the bar, and popping drugs like they’re Skittles. You’ve lost control of your life, lost the ability to judge what’s right and what’s the biggest bonehead move you’ve ever made.”

  He snorted. “That would be Elle?”

  “No, that would be you nearly killing yourself.”

  “I just thought . . .” He swiped at his wet cheeks, then pushed his tongue against his lower lip, making Darcy want to cry. The gesture was endearing, somehow; the old Kevin was there, the kid who used to tease and connive just to get her to make out with him. “I thought if you couldn’t stand me anymore, I didn’t want to be here.”